Search AJM

Chinese company set to begin controversial JV copper mining operation in Myanmar

A new foreign-managed
copper mine will start production in Myanmar within weeks of the National
League for Democracy taking power. The Letpadaung project, which Canada’s
Ivanhoe Mines divested in 2007, is operated by a subsidiary of China-based Wanbao Miningin partnership with Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings.
As Kyaw Kyaw Aung, Tin Aung Khine and Thinn
Thiri report, the project has been dogged by consistent protests against land acquisitions.

A CHINESE MINING COMPANY will begin copper
production at a controversial site in central Myanmar in May, a month after the
new government led by the opposition party comes to power, a corporate
spokesman said Friday.

The large mine project operated by China’s Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper Limited and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd.
(UMEHL), a Myanmar an army-owned conglomerate, in the town of Letpadaung in
Sagaing region has come under fire by local farmers who have long protested the
company’s land takeovers in the area.

“We will start copper production in May, a month
after the new National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government takes power,” Dong Yunfei, Wanbao’s spokesman, told
RFA’s Myanmar Service.

He added that Wanbao expected to benefit from good
relations with the NLD government because party leader Aung San Suu Kyi would
make policy decisions based on the rule of law and national reconciliation.

“So we believe the country will be more developed,”
he said.

The mine is one of several Chinese operated
megaprojects under way in the Southeast Asian nation that have come under fire
from locals because of environmental damage and expropriated land.

Such protests prompted the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party
(USDAP) led by President Thein Sein
in 2011 to suspend construction of the Myitsone Dam and hydroelectric power
development project by the China PowerInvestment Corporation [CPI] in Kachin state for five years.

Dong Yunfei, however, said he wasn’t concerned that
a similar fate might befall the Letpadaung project.

“Huge projects like this one are planned, agreed to
and signed by both sides under the full extent of the law and legalities,” he
said. “So, everything will proceed according to the law.”

Letpadaung in northwestern Myanmar's Sagaing region. Credit: RFA

Inquiry commission

Aung San Suu
Kyi, whose NLD party won general
elections last November by a landslide, had led a parliamentary inquiry
commission on the Letpadaung project, calling for more transparency in the
project’s land appropriation process and for police riot control training in
the wake of a violent raid on protesters at the mine site in 2012.

In 2014, she accused the government of ignoring the
commission’s recommendations to improve conditions at the mine, which she said
sparked clashes that December between police and farmers trying to prevent
Wanbao employees from fencing off land for the project. The incident left one
farmer dead and dozens injured. The USDP, however, rejected her claims.

In response to continued protests, Wanbao canvassed
local villages in 2014 and 2015 and met with farmers one-on-one to try to
resolve the issue, Dong Yunfei said.

“We are still trying to meet the demands of local
people,” he said, adding that Wanbao wanted to compensate villagers who had not
accepted money the company previously offered them for land it had taken for
the mining site.

“Our doors are open all the time for compensation,”
Dong Yunfei said. “We suggest that those who haven’t taken the compensation
come forward.”

Wanbao offered money to the family of Khin Win, the
farmer who was shot and killed during the December 2014 protest, to compensate
them for their loss, but they never showed up to collect it, he said.

“We heard there was division of opinions among the
family members,” he said. “We don’t know the latest situation now.”

No crop compensation

Wanbao, however, has no plan to compensate
villagers annually for money they would have otherwise made from crops, because
the company leased the land from the government, not the farmers, Dong Yunfei
said.

Wanbao and UMEHL previously said they would pay
farmers the highest market rate for crops at the site, but locals rejected the
offer and demanded the return of their land.

Police stopped 200 farmers last month from
protesting the company’s decision not to compensate them for crops that had
been destroyed or displaced.

Thwei Thwei Win, a Letpadaung farmer and activist,
told RFA that Wanbao has not
conducted any further negotiations with locals whose land the company took in
the run-up to the start of copper production in May.

“There have been no negotiations or discussions
between residents and the company,” he said. “The company had not informed
locals about anything. Because of this, I see no way to resolve the issues
between the farmers and the company.”

Under the new government, however, Letpadaung
villagers expect the NLD to help resolve the matter with Wanbao, he said.

“We expect the new government will do something for
our farmers’ problems,” he said. “We also expect to push to the government as
well as the company until we finally see results.”

No dealings yet

But NLD party spokesman Nyan Win said the new government hasn’t had any dealings with
Wanbao yet regarding the Letpadaung copper mine.

“I think their production plan is according to its
own schedule,” he told RFA. “We have no way making any deals [with Wanbao]
because government power has not yet been transferred to our party.”

Aung San Suu Kyi must examine whether or not Wanbao
has implemented the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry commission, he
said.

“Letpadaung can resume production only after
complete implementation of the recommendations of the inquiry commission,” he
said. “We don’t know whether the implementation has been done, but we have the
commission’s report with the full list of recommendations.”

As for the Myitsone dam, Myan Win said the NLD
hasn’t seen documents pertaining to the agreements between China and Myanmar
regarding the project.

“There is no transparency, and we haven’t seen the
contracts,” he said, adding that the NLD-led government would follow domestic
and international laws when making decisions about Chinese megaprojects in
Myanmar.

Nevertheless, the NLD will examine such documents,
before deciding the dam’s fate, Nyan Win said.